Two homes can ask for the same visit and get two different schedules. The difference is often the road, not the person. A short visit at the end of a long drive is mostly car time. Ask how travel is counted, then count it yourself.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Read the address against the service area

  • Write the street address of the house and the nearest major road.
  • Note whether the house sits in the city, the inner county, or the outer county.
  • Ask the agency for its service area in writing, by town or by zip code, and check your address against it.
  • Ask where the caregivers are based. An agency with staff living near the house can fill a gap faster than one sending people across the metro.

Size the visit to the trip

A thirty minute visit with a forty minute drive each way is an hour of car time for thirty minutes of help. Ask these three questions before you accept any short visit in a far home.

  • How is drive time counted: billed, folded into the visit, or left out?
  • Will the agency group visits by neighborhood and keep the same caregiver on the same route?
  • What is the cutoff for accepting a visit at all? An address outside the service area should get a plain no, not a surprise on the invoice.

Test the schedule against a real week

Write out one normal week, hour by hour, as it actually runs in the house. Mark each visit and each drive. Add the drive time for every change of address. Then ask the agency to quote that same week in writing. Compare the total hours with what you expected. If the agency's total runs higher, ask which drive or which task is the reason. A vague answer is a finding.

Outside help for the map

A county senior services office or the regional aging office can tell you which agencies serve your address. That is a starting list, not a recommendation. Check each one against the service area question above. For how the monthly figure is built from hours, see How the monthly cost is built.